Co-Author: Guillaume Bussiere and Vivien Cao, University of British Columbia, Canada

Date: 8/7/14

Time: 10:35 AM – 10:55 AM

Room: MAK B1110

Related Symposium: S73

Safety instruction for undergraduates in the UBC Chemistry Department has always been addressed in the laboratory portion of the curriculum. Historically, safety topics were covered piecemeal during lab orientation sessions at the beginning of term and did not feature any assessment of whether students had learned safety procedures and policies. Student absenteeism during orientation and changes in course structure necessitated revision of this approach. We have implemented a mandatory safety quiz for our 3rd year lab courses. Students are provided study materials online and must successfully complete the quiz (grade 86% or above) prior to beginning any lab work, but the quiz grade does not contribute to the course grade. The high required grade makes the quiz a learning exercise and an assessment, since students can take the quiz multiple times. Drawing from a large pool of questions, each instance of the quiz is different. Rather than focusing on rote safety knowledge, questions are situationally-based and students must show good safety judgment to reach the correct answer. Example questions will be shown. This system is easily implemented in any Chemistry Department that has access to a learning management system, and has the advantage of providing easy record-keeping. We continue to develop the system, with a focus on adding versions for 2nd year and 4th year lab courses.

P969: Assembly of a vacuum chamber: A hands-on approach to introduce vacuum science

Author: Guillaume Bussiere, University of British Columbia, Canada

Co-Author: Robin Stoodley, University of British Columbia, Canada

Date: 8/7/14

Time: 10:35 AM – 10:55 AM

Room: MAN 123

Related Symposium: S56

Vacuum technology is essential to many aspects of modern physical and analytical chemistry, but vacuum-based experiments are rarely the focus of undergraduate laboratories. Typically undergraduate students will use mass spectrometry in a lab in combination with chromatography and the goal is to separate and identify a compound. Very often vacuum science is overlooked or simply ignored and the main reasons for this are cost and complexity. We have developed a relatively-inexpensive hands-on experiment that allows undergraduate students to learn about vacuum science while assembling a vacuum chamber to operate a mass spectrometer. The experiment is completed in less than 4 hours and is a great introduction to vacuum technology.

P970: Path to a laser spectroscopy experiment as part of an undergraduate laboratory

Author: Guillaume Bussiere, University of British Columbia, Canada

Co-Author: Robin Stoodley, University of British Columbia, Canada

Date: 8/7/14

Time: 11:10 AM – 11:30 AM

Room: MAN 123

Related Symposium: S56

Lasers are frequently used in experimental physical chemistry research laboratories but laser based experiments in teaching laboratories are still relatively rare. Several institutions have a laser-based experiment in their chemistry undergraduate curriculum but expense and complexity is still a major hurdle. The University of British Columbia Chemistry Department recently changed the organization and pedagogy of 3rd and 4th year lab courses and research-like experiments have been proposed for undergraduate chemistry laboratories. Adding a laser experiment to the physical chemistry laboratory course seems like an obvious thing to do. At UBC, the cost problem has been solved but the complexity of implementing such an experiment remains. Are the students ready for it? I will try to convince you that with a series of experiments, revolving around spectroscopy and mass spectrometry themes, undergraduate students can be taught the use of lasers in labs in a pedagogical way and even enjoy it.

P812: Re-thinking lab delivery

Author: Robin Stoodley, University of British Columbia, Canada

Co-Author: Guillaume Bussiere, Vishakha Monga and Christine Rogers, University of British Columbia, Canada

Date: 8/6/14

Time: 3:40 PM – 4:00 PM

Room: ASH 2302

Related Symposium: S23

I will discuss UBC Chemistry’s experience with re-organizing the structure of our 3rd year laboratories to allow for experiments integrated across the traditional sub-disciplines of chemistry and to allow additional student capacity without requiring the addition of more course sections or more contact hours. Our approach has students from four disparate degree programs working in the labs simultaneously; they are distinguished only by their course/section combination. Prior to start of term students schedule themselves into available experiments. We allow student choice of experiments within pre-specified minimum and maximum numbers of experiments in the traditional sub-disciplines and in an ‘integrated-experiment’ category. We use custom software to facilitate the student scheduling and to manage attendance and grades. The scheduling software can handle multi-period experiments, prerequisites, exclusions, and restricting experiments so they are only offered to students in particular course sections. Advantages and disadvantages of the system will be presented.